Wondering
In our small group yesterday for Nature of Christian Ministry, we discussed the fact that several people have dropped out of school after one semester. Several other people are still contemplating leaving during this semester.
Debbie Jones brought up that while Dr. Jones was in school at Emmanuel, this semester – second semester of the first year – was the most difficult semester of their time here. I wonder why that is. Is it just the idea of getting back into the daily grind of academia? Money? Home issues? Just curious. I’d like to know what we can do to a) prepare new students for the issues that will come up, or b) be able to recognize the issues during the semester to pray extra-hard for them while they’re making these decisions.
I’m not judging any of the people who dropped out. If they believe God is calling them to leave, then who am I to say it isn’t so? It just seems like there is more we can do as a community of faith to encourage people in their pursuit of God’s will – even if it involves leaving seminary.
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dropouts
I have a few thoughts on the subject. One reason people drop out of seminary after one semester is that one semester is enough to realize that seminary just isn’t for you- as in the case of our beloved Bob. The other reason is that in the second semester, the new has worn off. you come into the first semester feeling all excited and optimistic and not necessarily thinking about how grueling it is going to be. I knew that the academic part would be hard, but I didn’t know how emotionally and spiritually exhausting it would be. Then you get a break for six weeks… and have to go back. I’ll admit I was happy to be getting back into classes, but a little part of me was dreading it. And I’ll be honest- I wanted to throw up as soon as I walked into SME. My small group makes me want to throw up even more- not in a gross way, but in a “I can’t believe I am going to spend 2 1/2 hours every week being completely miserable” kind of way. They don’t tell you that part in the admissions materials, and I didn’t have that feeling 1at semester because I didn’t know what I was getting into. Preparation? I don’t konw if you can prepare people for this- the more senior students tried to tell us at the beginning of the year, but we didn’t believe them. I guess I wish is were a little easier to build community, so that when you’re floundering there was someone to talk to.
Re: dropouts
It’s easier to build community in the undergrad years, since everyone is living together in the dorms anyway. As Dr. Jones has said several times, you can’t microwave community. It comes with spending time with each other. Everyone comes from so many different situations in seminary that it’s much more difficult to create that community – short of forcing everyone to live on campus and share everything they have in common.
One thing I know that has helped me is getting involved in church where not everyone is in seminary. For some reason, it has helped keep everything in perspective for me.
As for SME, I guess we lucked out. I was actually happy to have heard that we were staying in the same groups. I think it comes from the intentionality of the leaders as well as the group members. For the record: How can throwing up be anything but gross?
The image that keeps coming back to me is during the orientation. I was talking to Casey and he told me he was trying to peg which students in our incoming class were going to drop out before the end of the semester. He obviously didn’t think he was going to be the first to go. I think there was some arrogance in some people when they first arrived.
One thing that might help is encouraging students to be in ministry for a while before attending seminary. We read these books like The Contemplative Pastor and other ministry books without a realistic perspective because most incoming students have not done ministry in the real world. It’s like the idealism from the undergrad days has bled into the first year of seminary. Look at how many people in our Christian Ministry class have actually married anyone or performed a funeral. I wonder how many people have even baptized someone. I don’t know if those experiences actually make someone a better student or not, though. Just some observations.